The following are comments by HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver and
Chairman Douglas Flint on a call with reporters on a range of
topics that have hurt Europe's biggest bank in the last two
weeks, including its Swiss bank failings, Gulliver's tax affairs
and relations with British newspapers.

FAILINGS IN SWISS BANK

GULLIVER:

"A number of us, myself included, think the practices of the
private bank back in the past are a source of shame and
reputational damage to HSBC. I think shame would be a reasonable
noun to use.

This makes people embarrassed of HSBC, concerned about HSBC,
and the acts of a handful of people damage the firm and damage
its reputation."

FLINT:

"It's totally humbling. It was clear people did not respect
the standards to which they had signed up for."

TOO BIG TO MANAGE?

GULLIVER:

"We recognise there was a challenge around the 'too big to
manage' issue in 2011, which is why we made a radical
reorganisation in the way the company was managed.

We're still on a journey to embed that change of
organization, and we're still on a journey to simplify the firm.

That's why I've sold 77 businesses and taken the headcount
down from 310,000 to about 257,000 today.

We will need to continue simplifying the firm and I don't
rule out that we might make more disposals.

But I don't think the firm is too big to manage. You can see
the validity of the business on the revenue side, even if the
cost of running (a big bank) has clearly gone up.

We added 200,000 people (between 1998 and 2007). That
massive jump in headcount, together with what was going on in
the external environment -- clearly we didn't have strong enough
controls.

I have some confidence that the kind of things that happened
in the mid-2000s won't be happening today. But I can't give you
complete assurance. We seem to now be holding publicly listed
companies to a different standard than we might hold the armed
forces, the church or any large organisation."

CEO GULLIVER'S TAX AFFAIRS

HSBC said Gulliver holds a bank account in Switzerland that
was set up in 1998 to hold bonus payments, responding to a
report in the Guardian newspaper (http://bit.ly/17K6Gda).

GULLIVER:

"I'm a UK tax resident and I'm Hong Kong domiciled. I've
paid UK tax on the total fixed and variable pay since 2003.

It's not surprising of a 35-year HSBC veteran should be Hong
Kong domiciled. That is what I regard as home, and therefore it
is my permanent home and I would expect to die abroad, which is
the test around domiciliary.

I do not believe that in any way impacts my ability (to run
the bank)."

FLINT:

"There's absolutely nothing Stuart has done that is other
than completely transparent, legal and appropriate."

ADVERTISING STRATEGY:

Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper has denied accusations
by one of its former journalists who said the paper had held
back on coverage of the scandal because it wanted to retain HSBC
as an advertiser.

GULLIVER:

"It's nothing to do with seeking to influence anybody's
editorial coverage ... we advertise in order to sell more
banking products. It makes no sense to put an advert alongside
hostile editorial coverage.

It's nothing beyond a commercial decision on where we put
our advertising."